Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

We had a super day today — took the TTC downtown and had lunch with a friend and checked out his [art] studio, then walked down to Future Bake Shop for some cake, then walked further down to the museum where we bumped into one of Nefarious’s classmates (a pleasant surprise that happens surprisingly often in a city so large), and then a street dog on the walk to pick up a package that DHL told me would be waiting. That was the only part of the day that failed, because it was a new DHL location and the depot operators didn’t know they got their shipments at 7PM (I’d been told 11AM). But still a very full, fun, and tiring day. We actually have a really good weekend planned, including her aerial dance class and some friend activities.

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A few weeks ago, my friend and fellow parenting blogger Gillian got in a fight with some other mommyblogs over her hardcore [pro] stance on attachment parenting. To paraphrase, she essentially made the statement that “cry it out” (ie. occasionally letting your child cry out whatever is upsetting them) was tantamount to child abuse. I think that in a perfect world, most people would attachment parent, but I think in the real world very few parents haven’t occasionally let their kid cry it out… I think also that almost everyone is insecure about their parenting, so as you can imagine, it really ruffled some feathers!

Anyway, while I do agree that attachment parenting — something that I certainly fell far short of myself* — is what we are evolved to do and should aspire to, I wouldn’t personally call it abuse to fail at that. However, looking at some of the blogs of parents that she was arguing with, what deeply disturbs me is that so many parents are willing to write negatively about their experiences as a parent. Complaining about how hard it is, things their kids did that were difficult or annoying, revealing various embarrassments and shortcomings, and so on. Now that is tantamount to child abuse in my opinion.

What I think these parents don’t realize is that one day, probably when they are most vulnerable, their kids will read these blogs, and have the angst-y belief: “my parents hated me.” Or perhaps some other kid that doesn’t like them will find it and tease them about it. It attacks ones own child’s self-worth. Publicly blogging anything that could be used against or might be difficult for a child to understand subjectively is completely unacceptable. It’s my feeling that parent-blogging must be a celebration of parenthood. If you can’t write something nice, don’t write, or write in a private forum.

And here as my entry illustration is a great drawing by Nefarious of a mother attending to a crying baby!

* Right now Nefarious is in another room hollering, “can you come here? can you come here? do you have an injury or something that is stopping you from walking? can you come here? are you traveling in mexico right now or something and you can’t hear me? can you come here? can you come here?” Hilarious…

My eyes are very bloodshot right now… I figure my hand web is healed enough now, so we’re back in the pool after school (no way am I letting Nefarious get in the habit of doing nothing but video games!). Swimming is one of my favorite things in the world. I love just relaxing under water, and I love the games we play as well — races and water acrobatics and faux synchronized swimming.

Speaking of my eye, I went in for a consultation for laser eye surgery. I haven’t decided yet whether it’s something I want to do, but I wanted to know if I was even eligible. It was the first time they’d ever seen a tattooed eye of course, but after various tests (curvature, pressure, and so on), it again showed no abnormalities or damage that they could find, and they assured me that it should make no difference on the surgery. That said, they felt they’d err on the side of caution and recommend PRK over LASIK because PRK puts less stress on the eye.

So anyway, more good news. I consider what happened with my eye (and I believe the same happened to a woman in New Zealand with UV eye tattoos) is the “worse reasonable case scenario”, and while occasionally nerve-wracking in its initial uncertainty, it’s really gone remarkably well.

[Side note: Nefarious is having a bath after we're swimming which is why I've got a chance to post. She just excitedly called me in -- "I can explain the faucet to you. The 'C' stands for 'cold', and the 'H' stands for 'hot'. That's why they have those letters but not the words!". Watching her learn to read, and discover the world through the eyes of a reader, has really been wonderful.]

Caitlin plays Brain Age and those sorts of games on her DS to exercise her brain and can whoop me mentally in most categories. Today I decided to tape a mic to a camera tripod and try singing and playing guitar in Rock Band. I’m a genuinely terrible singer so I was quite pleased so see that I could make it through playing guitar on HARD and singing at EASY… I think I’ll up the levels and see how many boos I get. But seriously, if you haven’t tried doing this, try it — it’s a ton of fun and may well be a mental workout.

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the election results tonight… I saw that the McCain campaign has been circulating a memo telling people to “ignore the exit polls” because they “veer to the left by 15%+”… Hmm… If you could “veer” the election 15 points to the right via voting machines, you just stole yourself an election. Interesting that this little statistical abnormality only started to show its ugly face once Republican electronic voting machines became popular.